


The Sidekick

by whatwouldvoldydo



Series: The Sidekick Series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-04-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 15:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 17,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14046873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatwouldvoldydo/pseuds/whatwouldvoldydo
Summary: Hermione came into Fred's life like a bushy, bossy whirlwind. And, despite everything, she became more important to him each of the seven years he knew her.It's a painfully ordinary story told in fourteen chaotic memories.





	1. Something Special

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a story I originally posted on fanfiction.net, but which i am currently rewriting and hopefully improving to post on here. Have fun, I guess

Fred Weasley rushed up the many flights of stairs of the Burrow to his room. Somewhere in the yearly chaos that was his family heading for the Hogwarts express he had actually forgotten his broom and his favourite joke article, whoopee cushions, an ingenious muggle invention. Fred, however, had chosen to only give the former as an explanation to his mother as to why they couldn’t start their journey to King’s Cross. She wasn’t quite as fond of silly muggle gags as him. Taking the last three stairs at once, he jerked open the door to his room, grabbed his broom from the cupboard, took his whoopee cushions, pushed them into his bag and turned on his heels to return to the ground floor.

While he rushed down the stairs again, a wide grin spread on his lips at the prospect of returning to Hogwarts. His home was nice, of course, as homes tended to be, and he could feel blessed to have such a happy, more or less functional family, but Hogwarts was quite simply better. His friends where there, together with sheer endless possibilities for him and his twin to foster their evil genius, he could escape his mothers constant clinging, there was nowhere one could play better pranks on people and recently he had enjoyed the added perk of being able to tease George mercilessly.

When he jumped down the last stairs, once again taking them at once, and ran straight into a person, he, however, didn’t look into the carbon copy of his own face that belonged to his beloved twin, but rather the still oddly similar one belonging to his older brother, Percy. His lanky chest was proudly puffed out, which looked completely ridiculous, but did serve its purpose of showing off the ornate “P” attached to it. Prefect. Percy had joined the long familial dynasty of prefects, directly following Charlie and Bill. The difference was that Charlie and Bill weren’t snobbish blithering idiots, who thought themselves more important than family, but really cool, ingenious dudes. After all, Charlie was a keeper in a Romanian dragon reservoir and Bill a Gringotts employed curse-breaker in Egypt.

“Gosh, Fred, how long can one take?”, snarled Percy in his unbearable professor’s voice. While Fred quickly considered whether to tease Percy about the fact that he’d take double the amount of time he had to cover the same distance or his unreasonable pride about a silly school position, George approached and mimicked his twin’s raised eyebrow. George then copied Percy’s exact pitch and mocked, “Exactly, Frederick, what’s this dawdling about? Don’t you see that our dear brother Percival desperately needs to get to the station so as to annoy the student body with his newly won authority?” Alright, so the unreasonable pride it was, Fred thought and wickedly replied, “We should desperately disable that, beloved brother”. “But what to begin with?”, he mused, scratching his chin. “There’s so much”, George mused. “What about the accident from last year?”, the youngest man of the family proposed. They both whipped around to face Ron and simultaneously started to mock cry and start their typical banter. “Have you ever been so proud of our Ronnie-Wonnie?” – “Oh, they grow up so fast, don’t you think, Fred?” – “We must have done something right, after all, it seems”.

But Molly Weasley interjected the drama like a fury. “You are holding everything back, Fred, George. We will be late”, with these words she shoved them all towards the fire place and muttered something sounding an awful lot like, “What have I done wrong with those two?” The youngster of the family, Ginny, gave them both a diabolic smile. Like so often, Ginny seemed to be perfectly amused by the twin’s humour. Moreover, she had the unfair advantage of being able to get away with anything, because she was adorable. Thinking this, Fred grabbed some flew powder, threw it into the fire place, stepped into the green flames and clearly exclaimed, “King’s Cross”. At the train station, he stepped out of the fire place and waited for the rest of his family. After they had all arrived, they headed to the actual barrier, which Percy was the first to cross.

He and his twin followed straight after. On the hidden platform on the other side, Lee Jordan, their best friend, who complained about them always being late, waited for them. “Even Angie is already here and she only returned from her vacation”, Lee ended his tirade, which made George perk up immediately. “She’s already here? And you only say that now?”, he asked. “We are deeply filled with indignation”, they added together. “Haha”, Lee laughed sardonically, shooting a meaningful look at Fred and George, “Even though you’re making fun of it, you’re into Angelina, Georgieboy. Now we only have to find someone, who can domesticate Fred”. “That girl still needs to be born”, the afore mentioned declared ceremonially and in his thoughts happily considered that, indeed, there was no girl who could outpower him. “Or enrolled”, George suggested and then dragged his brother along with himself, first to their family and then to the train.

Once they had found a compartment, Lee amused them with the story of a prank that he had played on his neighbours in his holidays, until there was a knock on the door to the compartment. A young girl, probably a first year and therefore in Ron’s year, put her bushy head into the compartment. She already wore her robes and seemed completely confident unlike most first years, who were just alarmed. “Has anybody of you seen a toad? A boy called Neville has lost his and he can’t find it without help”, she clearly enunciated. While saying this she shot daggers at him with her glare, as if she accused him personally of kidnapping the toad. All three of them shook their heads, at which the young one left the compartment. “What was that?”, Lee asked, completely and utterly confused. The twins shrugged in unison. But when Fred glanced at George he saw mirrored what he felt himself. A sort of confused feeling of being impressed by that girl, who had beamed with such strength at such an age. She sure as hell wasn’t ordinary.


	2. So, Ron's an idiot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title says it all, really. Ron's a tool and Fred has to fix it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the next chapter. I'd just like to inform you that the chapters are really not consistent in length and I will post them quite quickly. Have fun!

Fred sat on the first step of a small stone staircase that didn’t only lead to the next floor, but also to a secret passage, which in turn, lead to the Slytherin’s common room. Hidden away in that passage were his brother George and their best friend, Lee, setting some things in motion for the newest in a long row of ingenious pranks that they had pulled in the last two years. Normally, Fred would have been right there with them, putting his mischievous energy into making the insufferable Slytherins’ lives a bit more difficult, and certainly not out there keeping cave, but it so happened that he had bungled the last prank and they had therefore been caught, detention with Filch being the consequence. Which had been an extremely unpleasant evening to say the least and it also kept George away from Angelina, which, although he strongly denied it, he generally didn’t appreciate. Still, he would have liked to be a part of it. After all, their prank would be a wonderful contribution to a successful Halloween in Hogwarts for everyone minus the Slytherins.

Sitting on his resting place to keep people from passing the small staircase and maybe noticing the commotion inside the passageway, he let his thoughts slide. This year had been incredibly successful so far, except the disastrous outcome of the last prank of course. Well, Divination as a compulsory optional subject had been a bit of a bust as well and Quirrell was even more nervous than usual, although that hardly seemed possible, considering the teacher’s generally rather jumpy constitution, but apart from that everything was fine. George and he had pulled off some grade-a pranks, the Quidditch training worked out well since they had their new seeker, Harry Potter, and it didn’t hurt that their younger brother Ron had snagged the same as his best friend of all people. Hm, Harry. He was a really nice guy, shy, of course, which they hadn’t really expected from the boy, who lived, but genuine and polite and even funny at times. Merlin knew, why he had chosen their loveable, but more than complicated brother as his best mate.

At that moment, Ron’s voice ripped him from his thoughts. The second youngest of the Weasley family scuffled – there was no other way to call his slouching way of walking – across the courtyard. Fred pressed against the wall, nearly melting in with it, mostly, because he did not want to start a conversation with his childish brother, if he could avoid it in any way. It was quite simply too tiring. However, Ronniekins didn’t even need Fred as a partner in conversation, as he was conducting a very animated conversation with Seamus Finnigan, an Irish first year, and explained to him in an excessively loud and obnoxious way how horribly Hermione Granger had treated him by correcting him in Charms. Fred nearly rolled his eyes into the back of his head over Ron not having a grip on himself. Granted, the Weasleys hadn’t exactly been blessed with immeasurable patience, but the rest of them were usually capable of showing some self-restraint. Plus, from what he had picked up from listening in to various teacher conversations, Ron didn’t really show brilliance in the domain of magic, whereas Hermione did. It was incredibly childish of Ron to act out like that and Harry, who was walking next to him, didn’t seem all that happy about Ron’s way of talking about their class mate either. Ron reached the end of his fiery speech by spitting, “No wonder nobody likes her, to be honest, she’s a nightmare”.

Unfortunately, Hermione, who stormed by his brother, had obviously heard that. She came running over the courtyard, a book pressed to her chest, and headed directly towards Fred’s staircase, until, without breaking or looking up, she ran into him. Blindsided, Fred caught her, holding her to make sure she wouldn’t fall over, even though that nearly cost him his balance. “Sorry”, Hermione muttered, her voice thick with tears and picked up the book she had lost, when running into him. She wanted to get off, pass by him through the passage, but he couldn’t really let that happen, so he grabbed her wrist and held her back. Hermione turned around, her hair sticking out even wilder than usually and her eyes shining from barely held back tears. “Are you ok, Hermione?”, he asked, his voice growing soft at the picture. He supposed the similar age difference to his younger sister Ginny, that made him suddenly feel rather protective of her. Plus, the feeling that her obvious pain was his blood’s fault. Hermione gulped hard and tried to answer, but Fred realized that she was about to lie, hence he didn’t hesitate long and pulled her, this time because that’s how you comforted people in his world, to his chest.

That seemed to end the bit of self-control she had managed to hold on to, as she started sobbing almost immediately with no restraint and cried into his shirt. After a good while she pulled away from him and lamented, “Everybody hates me. But I just want to help and be good on school”. “Nonsense”, Fred stated and bowed down a bit to look directly into her still glistening eyes, “Nobody hates you, Hermione. Harry seems to like you alright, and so does Dean and Seamus and Parvati and so many others. And as for my brother, he’s just jealous, ‘cause you’re better than him”. She shook her head in disbelieve, but Fred was in a rant and not about to be stopped, “Listen, my ridiculous little brother, screw him. You can be pissed at him, he’s deserved it, considering how he behaved towards you”. A sound slipped past her lips that he first thought to be sob, but actually turned out to be a half-hiccough, half-giggle. “Shouldn’t you be defending your little brother?”, she asked smirking. “Only in case of emergency”, Fred replied promptly, “He has to be risking death or the loss of his magic at least”. Hermione giggled again, her eyes still shining with tears, but with amusement mixed in there. “Of all people in this school, Ron’s the last one, whose opinion you should consider significant in any way. I have never seen anyone as immature as him. And that’s quite something coming from a guy, who earnestly considered sending his younger sister a toilet seat”. “But the others like him”, Hermione revolted. Fred grinned and replied, “He’s Harry’s best friend and, more importantly, my younger brother”. Hermione smiled and pressed the book more closely to her chest, tears welling up again.

“Just ignore Ron, ok? He’s an idiot”, Fred gave her a caring, brotherly smile. “Duly noted”, Hermione replied, gulping hard and rushed off again. She was already nearly over the courtyard, when she turned around and said, “Thanks, Fred”. He gave her a thumbs-up and sank down on the step again. Somewhere in his brain, he made a quick note that she had been able to differentiate him from his twin, which even his mother struggled to do at times. At that George and Lee came stumbling out of the corridor at last, erasing Hermione from his mind, and proceeded to tell him about their actions, also informing him that his shirt was a mess. He let them think he had made out with somebody, because it seemed a lot more interesting than a first year crying on his shoulder, because his brother was a tool.


	3. White lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're slowly moving on here. And I understand that Hermione is a bit OOC in this one, but I just think this way her dynamic works much better. And honestly, we all know there's a bit of mischief in Hermione, right? I mean, she literally set fire to a guys' coat in Philosopher's Stone.

Hermione whipped around, her hair inelegantly smacking her to face her parents impatiently. They had once again been glued to a shop window in diagon alley, which admittedly she could understand, as they were quite impressive even to her as a witch who had by now been living in this magical world for over a year. Obviously, they must be even more impressive to her parents, who had only ever come into personal contact with magic twice before, when they went shopping for her first school year and when they brought her to the train station. As to be expected from her parents, who were both very passionate about medicine, their eyes were glued to the shop window of an apothecary, which was the kind of place they tended to visit, even when none magical, in every new place. She understood the appeal, of course, having been raised with an appreciation for all kinds of remedies, whether those were school medicine or more traditional and alternative, but at the end of the day, the ingredients in the apothecary weren’t all that different from any other place. The same old herbs and animal parts with some magical things strewn in between.

Admittedly, Hermione’s less the enthusiastic reaction to her parents acting in that way, was less a sign of her disinterest and more a side effect of her anxiousness to see her best friends again. Ever since she had got a letter from the Weasleys at the beginning of the summer inquiring if her parents didn’t maybe want to join up for the shopping so that the kids could meet, she had been looking forward to it. And as the day got closer and she had got another letter in Ron’s crappy handwriting saying that Harry was with them too, Hermione had very much sat on needles. As a person, who hadn’t exactly had the biggest group of friends in primary school, she desperately wanted to be reunited with the close friends she had made in the last school year, eager to introduce them to her parents. As it was, she looked around the busy street, hopeful to find one of her two best friends, but of course they weren’t there, as there was still half an hour left until they planned to meet up at the top of diagon alley.

Still, although there was half an hour left, she caught a glimpse of a characteristically red tuft sliding into a side street. “Mum, Dad?”, she addressed her parents, who were still busy checking out the different magical creature pieces in the shop window. Her mother turned around to face her, clearly eager to continue her discussion about possible remedies. “I’ll shortly look at something in the new store over there. Is that alright?”, she finally inquired, not exactly lying about it. There was a new small book store that looked quite intriguing. “Of course”, her mother nodded, “But no more than twenty minutes until you are back here”. And as she was about to sprint away her dad added, “And don’t spend all of your pocket money”. Hermione just gave them both a loving smile and was already in the side street she had seen the red head disappear in. There, at the other exit of the street, she caught Fred Weasley, his back turned to her, but still unmistakeable from his posture, clothes and hair.

“Fred, I wouldn’t have expected to see you here so early”, she greeted hi sweetly, knowing full well that his family wouldn’t have arrived here yet and he was obviously doing something his mother wouldn’t approve of. The twin turned around caught red-handed and looked at the young girl in front of him, his expression one of fondness. “I wouldn’t have expected you here without your parents either, Hermione”, he immediately replied. Hermione smiled and continued to look at him, remarking that he had grown quite a bit over the summer, which was ridiculous, but to expected from a Weasley child. It was nice to finally see one of her magic friends again, because even though her parents were loath to admit it, Hermione didn’t exactly belong to their world, the muggle world anymore, but felt much more comfortable in and connected to the magical world. And even though Fred couldn’t compare to seeing her best friends again, he was still a sight for sore, magic deprived eyes.

“Touché”, she muttered, while considering the twin, “But truly, what are you doing here?”. “As you can probably imagine something that doesn’t go d’accord with my mother’s wishes. And, not that I would ever distrust you, Miss Goody-two-shoes Hermione” – a smirk appeared on his pale lips – “but, when Mum’s bosom starts to raise and sink dangerously, and she prances, even the worst of us break and reveal everything. And you certainly aren’t the worst, so I won’t go into details”. “I’m not afraid of your mother’s gigantic rack, Fred, I’ve seen worse”, Hermione immediately shot back, barely tasting how weird the crass words felt on her lips. Fred’s eyes widened, as was to be expected, at hearing such a sentence uttered by the girl he had just called goody-two-shoes, and surprisingly wrongfully it seemed.

“You’ve changed”, he noted, eyes still wide, but in a very amused way. “In which way?”, Hermione jeered, poking at him a bit, though not physically, as that would have been an awkward interaction. Fred raised one of his red eyebrows in a you-know-what-I-mean-manor. Hermione couldn’t find it in her to disagree and instead conceited, “In your orbit you sort of have to change that way”. Her opposite laughed loudly at that, bowed in a very silly way and then countered, “Thank you for the flowers, but then the whole of Gryffindor would behave that way and it obviously doesn’t, so you, little one, may ascribe that one to yourself”. Her eyes at that, she thought, twinkled in an impish way that was quite similar to Fred’s.

Glancing at her watch, she realised how late it already was and immediately stated as such by saying, “I think you should go soon”. When Fred slowly raised an eyebrow she added, “You’re supposed to be here in ten minutes, so your mother will start screaming your name furiously in about five”. From Fred’s reaction she could tell that Ron’s tales of his mother’s reaction to stress hadn’t been exaggerated. “And I suppose your parents will expect you back at the apothecary soon too”, Fred replied nodding to himself. Hermione looked at him astonished, realising that he must have seen her before she had seen him, but although her gaze asked quite some questions, she only got a shrug as an answer. “Welp”, he then stated, “I would be much obliged if you dug up your hopefully existing talent for acting to seem as if you’re seeing me for the first time this summer, in about fifteen minutes”. “I think that’s possible”, she grinned, already leaving the alleyway to join her parents.

About half an hour later, she saw Harry come out of a street, Hagrid at his side. She rushed to them happily, greeting them both with bright eyes and repairing Harry’s glasses, now that she was surrounded by magical people and a small charm wouldn’t be noticed. Thereupon, they joined the Weasleys, where Mrs. Weasley pulled both of them to the afore mentioned gigantic rack, giving them a bear hug. Then Hermione greeted Ron smiling and talked to both him and Harry for a minute, introducing them to her parents, whom they hadn’t really met before. Only then did her gaze slide to the twins, who were standing to the side looking as innocent as they possibly could, which wasn’t very. “Fred, George, nice to see you again. Seems like an eternity since I saw you the last time”, she smirked, an expression that she was sure all the surrounding people interpreted as a happy smile. “A wonderful feeling to be desire so much by you, but we know that after a while everybody becomes addicted to us”, George grinned broadly. “Yes, actually you would miss us just as much, if you had seen us half an hour ago. After a while every second apart seems like an eternity”, Fred added, gracing her with a conspiratorial wink. Then they all proceeded to do the very shopping they had come for and only, when they said goodbye later on, Fred’s lips formed a very clear, “Thank you”. Hermione grinned at him, acknowledging as much and then left with her parents, eager to get back to Hogwarts in a few days.


	4. Never Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst. That's all I have to say. So much angst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have nothing other to say than "Jesus Christ (or better Merlin), sorry for the angst"

“What?!”, Fred Weasley shouted. It was a rare, extremely alarming sight to see Fred inflamed with rage. His flaming red hair stood wildly, even more than usually, because he had gone through it enraged more than once. The blue eyes that usually were clear and fresh like a small crick somewhere in the Southern English hills, had taken on the dull coldness of glacial ice. It was biting and painful, how he stared down at them. But even worse than that, worst of all was that the corners of his mouth twitched in uncertainty. It wasn’t scary, because they thought he would snap, he had already snapped as much as he could. It was scary, because Fred was certainty in person, and now he seemed unsure and concerned and vulnerable. And Fred was absolutely aware of all this, hating herself.

His younger brother and Harry stood in front of him, both with their heads bowed low and looking very closely at the floor and the intricate red carpet that covered the Gryffindor common room, but certainly not him, who was standing before them. “God dammit!”, he swore again, “a god damned monster is in this school. A monster that wants exactly one thing, which you both know: Muggleborns. And you complete morons…” His voice broke and he let himself fall on the couch behind him exhaustedly. He felt empty and guilty and he hated every part of it. At the same time, George took over, sighing deeply, as he looked at him doubtfully. Sighing once again, he addressed the younger boys, “You have left her alone. That should have never happened. We all have a privileged blood status, but you guys should have been aware of the risk this poses for your best friend”. It was rare that the twins did chastising. It felt strange, still George seemed to slip into the role quite confidently. Family meant everything and if somebody risked the wellbeing of the family. Well. At that he turned to Fred continuing his speech, “ _However_ , there is no use in freaking out at you, because what happened is punishment enough”.

At this point Fred’s guilt became unbearable, so he stood up and declared, “I have to see her”. His twin, as well as the two younger boys looked at him in earnest astonishment. “You’re going to see Hermione?”, Harry inquired slowly. “I’m going to her, nobody will follow me”, Fred continued staring the others down and asking them to contest him. “Uh”, Ron started, “Madame Pomfrey threw us out”. Fred simply shrugged, clearly showing that he would handle it, because he would, and left the common room. As he walked to the medicine wing, he understood that the others were confused with his care for Hermione, but he remembered the few moments he had shared with her and he had come to the conclusion that Hermione was as much family as anybody else and he should have thought about the risk to her. But he’d overlooked it, because everybody in his family was pure blood and Harry was a halfblood too.

When he knocked on the large doors of the medicine wing, nothing happened for a while, until a very annoyed Madame Pomfrey opened the door, stepping out the door. “Mr. Weasley?”, she asked astonished, obviously wondering that he was here instead of his younger brother begging to be lead back in. “Madame Pomfrey, I know that you have thrown out Harry and Ron. And I understand that you want your sleep and the patients need to rest, but I absolutely need to see Hermione”. He watched her reaction closely, noticing how her gaze softened slightly at his pleading tone, although her eyes were still hard and determined. Despite himself he could feel a lump grow in his throat and thus quietly added, “I beg you, Madame, on my knees”. At this her look became even softer, showing every sign that she had given in and it therefore didn’t surprise him when she said, “Fine, Mr. Weasley, see your friend. But you will be gone in an hour or I am forever banning you from this wing”. Fred just nodded his agreement, knowing that Madame Pomfrey was being very serious.

As he hushed into the room, Fred realised that the only taken beds were occupied by petrified people. All people that he knew, all lovely people that didn’t deserve what was happening to them. His heart broke a little when he saw Hermione lie on her designated bed. She seemed tiny in the huge bed and against the snow-white bed cloths she seemed a lot paler than she actually was. Her complexion didn’t look like she was alive anymore. It looked like she hadn’t been petrified but killed. Fred shuddered at the thought of that. Her eyes were wide opened with shock, he realised watching her, and her mouth was open too. He felt tears pooling in his eyes, to his honest surprise.

“I should have taken better care”, he whispered, his voice horribly thin, which he hated but couldn’t change. “Harry and Ron weren’t aware of the danger you were in and I can’t even blame them, because they are so preoccupied with what’s going on with Harry, but I should have known. I should have known better. I should have taken care of you”, at that part his voice broke and he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Hermione was family. Family that he had let down. And it was him. Because Percy, as much as he was loath to admit it, had bigger problems than just looking out for Hermione, seeing as he was one of the prefects. And Ron was young and taking care of Harry. And somehow, between George and him, who were left as members of this family, he had the closer connection to Hermione. He should have taken care of her. Fighting against this horrible guilt he felt, he took her small hand in his large ones and breathed, “I’m so awfully sorry, Hermione. Forgive me, please. I beg you to forgive me”.

He let his upper body fall onto the bed, clinging onto Hermione’s cold hand, letting the guilt wreak havoc in him freely, because he felt that he deserved it. After a while he sat up straight again and his look went from hard to soft, as he first considered destroying whatever had hurt Hermione, and then decided to make a promise to her. He only whispered it, so that he barely could hear it himself, “Nothing bad is ever gonna happen to you again”.


	5. Tales of unrequited love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting into the thick of it, people, if only slowly. This chapter is, admittedly, a bit slow, but I think it works quite well. Feel free to leave constructive feedback though

Fred was lying on his bed and staring intently at the ceiling. It wasn’t the ceiling of his own shared room in the Burrow, which was easily understood because of the lack of ominous stains and terrifying cracks and it wasn’t the ceiling of his dorm at Hogwarts either, as it wasn’t made from a combination of stone and beautiful dark wood. It also didn’t feel like the ceiling was crushing him or literally two stories high, which excluded either of the two. As a matter of fact, Fred noted, the ceiling was perfectly boring, clean, white and of average height. He also decided not to delve further into his preoccupation with a ceiling.

His beloved twin brother, George, had once again disappeared, as he tended to do a lot at the moment to find as much time as possible making out with Angelina Johnson, who at some point had changed her position from weird and slightly concerning of George’s to his actual girlfriend. Fred, of course, understood these actions, but he still wasn’t happy about it, as it left Fred with a lot of time to be annoyed with his family. And he really, earnestly despised being annoyed with anyone. However, Ron, didn’t really help as his favourite hobby at the moment was pitying himself, because apparently, he had fallen for his best friend, Hermione. Normally, he would have considered using Ginny as a partner in mocking their youngest brother, but alas, the poor girl was forced to stay glued to their mother’s heel, who was slightly panicky about the youngest in the family after the whole ordeal of last school year. At least their father wasn’t around, as he was probably strolling around somewhere in the muggle world, buying things made of his favourite material, rubber.

A chuckle escaped from his mouth at that, when he thought of all the rubber things his dad had brought home. There were rubber ducks and rubber cooking materials and all that, but there were also much more amusing incidents, such as when from the last holiday, his father brought home a pack of condoms and a dildo. Merlin knew, where he had got those from. Fred shuddered at the image. The lengths he went to, just to not think about what was lurking in the back of his head. He had made a sport out of that the whole summer, which wasn’t as hard as one might think, because instead of staying at home the whole summer except for a week in Scotland, they had gone to visit their oldest brother Bill in Egypt, where everybody still did the same as here, but at least Fred got to spend quite a lot of time with Bill.

In that very moment there was a knock on the door that managed Fred from his comfortable, steady stream of completely useless thoughts. “Come in”, Fred grumbled, very much unlike himself. His mood had drastically dropped into the negative scale as soon as he realised that his first thought at the knock was Hermione. Because that was the one train of thought he had planned to avoid all the time and mostly succeeded. His biggest problem, as much as he hated to admit it, was that he couldn’t get his thoughts of Hermione Granger. His little brother’s _thirteen-year-old_ crush. Fred was very tempted to just ram his head into the wall, repeatedly, hopefully until he lost consciousness. As he didn’t do that though, his want for self-inflected pain only being a spur, he saw that it, of course, wasn’t Hermione standing in front of his bed, but George.

“Finished the latest snogging session?”, Fred asked, his voice acidic with mockery. His twin simply sighed, not taking his sour mood personally, although they were both aware of how unlikely that was of them, and just grumbled, “What’s going on with you, Freddie?”. Fred shrugged, knowing full well that it was infuriating to George, who hated nothing more than knowing that his twin was feeling bad and not sharing it with him, but just playing the moody teenager. As expected, George lashed out and grunted, “Dear Merlin, Fred, I am your _twin._ I see, when there’s something wrong”. It wasn’t the first time George had addressed the issue directly this summer, but it was becoming more and more frequent, which lead Fred to think that, sooner or later, he would definitely have to talk about what was going on. He preferred later, obviously.

George sighed again, deeper than before, and sat down on his twin’s bed, obviously looking for the closeness to his twin that he knew would make him talk and started questioning him, “Is it because of me? And Angelina? I mean, I have been talking about her for so long, so I thought you were ok with me spending this much time with her, but, I dunno, maybe I should draw back a bit. Spend more time with you?” “Merlin, no!”, Fred immediately stopped George’s train of thought and then more gently added, “Of course not, Georgie”. The last thing he wanted to do was ruin his twin’s functioning relationship, because of his own mood. “Because of mum?”, George dug on, taking the next most likely thing. Fred just rolled his eyes, because, as much as his mum annoyed him at times, he loved and appreciated her. “Is it because of Ron?”, George finally struck gold, with the mention of one name. The mention of Ron alone made Fred snap a bit and hiss, “Don’t mention that miserable being that claims to be a Weasley”.

His twin, at that, looked at him in honest shock, flabbergasted to say the least, “Freddie, I know that he’s annoying with whining all the time and his self-pity, but he’s our baby brother. And he’s got his first crush. I mean, do you remember how miserable we were then?” The addressee simply turned around and thought that this was the actual problem. Because, yes, Fred had had crushes and he knew the feeling, because he was suffering from it right now. “Just wish him good luck”, George advised, but Fred turned to face him again. He knew he didn’t have to say anything, knowing that his twin could read him like and open book, but still wondered, “And if I can’t do that?”

Facing his twin, he could see the realisation of what had ruined his entire summer dawn on him, his eyes widening in a well-known expression of disbelieve on his twin’s face and then turning to one that both of them usually reserved for puppies and apparently him in distress. “You haven’t really fallen for her, have you?”, George breathed, even though it was more of a statement than a question. They both of course knew it was true. Fred had had a whole summer of figuring it out and George just needed to carefully watch his expression to know that his assumptions were completely true. “I”, Fred started and stopped again, wringing his hands. After a deep breath he looked directly into those all too familiar eyes and stated, “I _can’t_ wish him good luck. It’s not possible. I can’t act as if I wished that they become an item. I can’t act as if I didn’t know that she’s not interested in him. And I certainly cannot act as if my feelings didn’t exist”. George sighed, sat down next to his brother and brushed his shoulder gently, leaning on to him. “Why is it more important that he’s happy than me being happy?”, Fred asked sadly, already knowing what his twin would tell him, them both owning a certain kind of wisdom that they usually kept well hidden. “Because you are much more likely to get over this and you’re a lot less silly and immature than our baby brother”, George replied, pulling Fred into a full-on bear hug, knowing that there was no way he could make it any better.


	6. A shoulder to cry one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: This has like the tiniest Harmiony hint in it, but nothing becomes of it, so there's that
> 
> And that's literally all I have to say. No angst in this, not overly fluffy either, just good ol' middle ground

Hermione ran through one of the many corridors of Hogwarts holding back tears once again. How did that happen so often? Because this certainly happened too often and it wasn’t exactly a comfort to her that her legs were carrying her confidently to somewhere she wasn’t quite sure. Her legs carried her down several staircases and then outside into a courtyard, where finally she stopped, not sure whether it was on purpose or because of exhaustion. When she looked around she realised that in her haze of tears she had rushed to a certain staircase that had become sort of a symbol of her pain, as she had spent to many times crying here. A trend that had started in her first year in Hogwarts, when she was still lonely and not friends with her best friends. It was the staircase, where she also had run into Fred Weasley, on that faithful Halloween two years ago. He had comforted her than, brotherly as he always was to her, had shown her that he cared. It still hadn’t stopped the fact that she nearly died in the toilets some hours later, though not of her own volition.

But her thoughts didn’t stay with the young Weasley all that long, but rather wandered to another close friend. A much closer friend than Fred was to her, actually. A boy with knobbly knees, scraggy, pitch-black hair and startling green eyes that everybody said resembled his mother, but Hermione only knew as Harry’s. At the thought of the affectionate looks she tended to get from those perfect eyes, her heart skipped a beat, and she immediately scolded herself. Why ever did she even think of Harry? It was just torture. Because he didn’t want her as anything more than his best female friend and because his heart didn’t skip a beat, when he thought of her very plain, European brown eyes. And Harry certainly wasn’t hiding away in some staircase in the more deserted parts of the castle, crying because of her. This sort of intelligent self-awareness certainly didn’t help with being a hormonal teenager, as her eyes filled with tears once again at that realisation hitting her once again. But a sudden touch at her shoulder ripped her from her very self-destructive train of thought and brought her back to the reality of the castle around her.

“Hermione”, a voice she knew well whispered ever so gently, obviously meaning to be comforting. She looked up from the ground or her hands or whatever she had been staring at without seeing to look at Fred’s crystal-clear, blue eyes, although she could barely make out the colour through the darkness and the haze of tears covering her field of sight. However, despite all this, she could still clearly see the mist of sadness that clouded them and the careworn expression around the corners of Fred’s mouth, that contrasted what she knew him to be so starkly. For a moment she wondered, what made him sad, but, because she knew his light-hearted demeanour and quite frankly was busy with her own self-pity, she got distracted easily by him asking, “Why do I always meet you here crying?”

There was humour in his voice, but also genuine concern. Hermione hiccoughed a mix of a repressed sob and a bitter laughter. “I don’t know”, she whimpered, realising how pathetic she must look to him. Fred, however, didn’t seem bothered by her being pathetic and instead sat down, wrapping his long muscular arms around her relatively small frame in one surprisingly smooth movement. It was a comfortable position for Hermione, although somewhere her pride perked up, wondering why he needed somebody to comfort her over something so silly. Still, she accepted the homely feeling of Fred’s embrace gratefully and so they stayed that way for a while, Hermione sobbing miserably into Fred’s shirt, because who cared really. Fred certainly didn’t.

“Will you explain, why you’re so out of it?”, Fred asked gently after a while, only nudging her ever so slightly to open up. “I’m a stupid, hormonal teenager that can’t differentiate friendly affection from love”, she grunted theatrically and made to raise her arms in an I-don’t-even-know gesture, which didn’t work, because Fred was still holding her. Fred realised and let her go, sitting more or less comfortably next to her with his lanky legs stretched out in front of him. He chortled and nudged her playfully, “Oh, so you are not interested in my dunderhead of a brother? I am shocked”. Hermione half laughed, half sighed annoyedly, which made Fred laugh harder and even wormed a smile through his concerned expression. The mood was lighter. She boxed him in the shoulder in mock-anger and grumbled, “That’s not funny! Do you have any idea how annoying it is, when somebody drools over you all the time?” “Of course, I have an idea. I am incredibly desirable”, Fred replied dryly and Hermione giggled, but still continued her string of complaints, “I can’t even concentrate on the lessons anymore”. “Which of course adds insult to injury”, Fred finished, obviously mocking her, albeit still in a friendly fashion. Hermione rolled her hazel eyes, but she realised herself that her lips weren’t quivering anymore and her eyes were just traitorously red, but not shiny with tears.

For some minutes they just sat there next to each other, staring into the night, until Fred quietly asked, “So, who’s the lucky one then?” Hermione shrugged, deciding that no reaction was better than a lie and the truth certainly wasn’t an option. Fred, however, instead carefully suggested, “May I guess?”. She didn’t refuse that, as she didn’t suppose that he would guess correctly, and even if he did, she supposed she didn’t have a problem with him knowing. She just couldn’t say it. Thus, she gave a hardly noticeable nod that Fred only caught, because he was sitting so close and watching her intently. “It’s Harry, isn’t it?”, he smiled, knowing from how she whipped around to face him that he was absolutely correct”. “It’s ironical, isn’t it”, she gave him a weird smile, wringing her hands, “Falling for him and Ronald falling for me and this being the one combination that certainly can’t work out”. Fred nodded, a strangely sad and sardonic expression flying over his face, before he laughed and lovingly put his arm around her again, starting to talk about pranks that he had pulled, which distracted Hermione from her pain. She of course didn’t know that it was just as much to distract himself.


	7. Thank Merlin for Quidditch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the halfway point, guys, and to be honest, this is a personal favourite. It might actually be my favourite chapter in this whole story. Nice and fluffy and just a tinge flirty. Enjoy!

Hermione grumbled as she was shaken softly by two familiar small, yet rough hands. She wasn’t exactly a morning person, if not necessary and something like Quidditch didn’t qualify as necessary for her. It was after all quite a boring and unnecessarily brutal sport, like most sports really, and mostly because of this brutal nature, she was sure, it was basically worshipped by the common wealth. She was painfully reminded of how glad she had been to find out that magical Great Britain wasn’t obsessed with football only to find out that they adored another completely senseless sport for which she could offer indifference at best and contempt at worst.

“Hermione, get up”, the voice of Ginny, whose room she shared in the Burrow, whispered gently. When the arms trying to more or less pet her awake started to get more forceful, showing the strength that was hidden in them from secret Quidditch practice, Hermione decided to open her eyes and show that she was awake, before the typical Weasley temper that was particularly strong in her younger friend started to flare up. She wouldn’t put it beyond Ginny to slap her or pour a bucket of water over her, with the excitement of the Quidditch world cup motivating her. “Alright, alright, I’m awake”, she therefore grumbled, opening her eyes to look into Ginny’s pretty green ones. She drowsily flipped her blanket away and sat up, then with a significant groan, she stood up and made the bed neatly, because even at four in the morning, she appreciated a nicely made bed. Her roommate laughed a dazzling laughter and inquired, “Do the boys actually know how much you hate mornings? I think it would shake the to the core to find out that you don’t jump out of bed in the morning like they seem to expect”. Hermione shrugged indifferently as she put on a sweater with a v-neckline and a pair of skinny jeans that she had grown to adore. “I _am_ a morning person, you know”, Hermione defended herself, “I just have certain ideas of what is worth shortening my time in bed for and what isn’t and as it so happens Quidditch qualifies as the latter”.

Ginny just laughed at that, obviously finding it highly amusing that Hermione didn’t show any interest in the sport that she adored and would probably exceed in, should she ever try out for it. “I will wake Charlie and Bill”, she then declared with a bright smile, “Will you take on Harry, Ron and the twins?” Hermione just nodded, not really caring whom she had to wake up and not even beginning to question why exactly _they_ had to wake up everybody else, when the boys could have just put up an alarm like they had. She climbed the stairs to the floor above, where Ron’s room, the room where both Harry and Ron stayed in, was located and with every step she took her body got more used to the reality of being awake at such an hour. She woke them both gently, which worked on this day, because of the general excitement for Quidditch, but wouldn’t have worked on any other day. She would never understand it, that she was sure of.

After she was sure that neither of her best friends would fall back asleep, she lingered down two floor to reach the twin’s room. On the way there she did already run into George, who gave her a typically mischievous grin and an elongated “Mornin’” before disappearing into the bathroom next to her. Not knowing the twins’ sleeping habits, and therefore not being sure if Fred was awake already, she gently pushed open the door to the home of the chaotic geniuses to wake up the second twin, if he was not awake already. She entered the room to find that Fred indeed was still sleeping and she had done well in coming in. He slept placidly in his bed, the blanket pulled up to his nose, his arm twisted under his head in a way that looked to be anything but comfortable. His chest rose and fell regularly with every calm, long breath that he took while still sleeping. Somehow Hermione found that while seeing him lay there and sleep so peacefully it was hard to imagine him being as crazy and ingenious as he was. He just looked young and at peace and lead by that thought she moved forward and brushed the bright red hair he had grown put over the summer out of his eyes. It took her a moment of shaking her head aggressively to get out of the trance she was in and realise how weirdly she had just behaved.

Back in control over herself again, she sat down at the edge of Fred’s bed and gently made to do her job, “Freddie, wake up”. Fred didn’t react by waking up, but just mumbled something unintelligible. Hermione couldn’t help but smirk, because she very much saw her own behaviour in the morning reflected in the older boys actions. Once again getting a bit lost in the picture, she started running her fingers through his surprisingly soft fire red hair and quietly repeated her words from before. Finally a reaction came in Fred muttering, “Don’t stop”. Hermione chuckled, having realised before that he had already woken up, and generously kept on playing with his hair and thereby massaging his head, making his hair an untidy mess. After some moments of them staying this, Fred slowly opened his eyes and grinned, “You could wake me up like that every day, Granger”. She laughed and asked, “Why did I think the two of you would have the exact same morning behaviour?” “Because we’re twins”, Fred casually suggested. Hermione didn’t comment on how she usually didn’t fall for the identical twins being the same thing and could very well tell them apart.

Fred shrugged once again and proceeded to sit up, shoving the blanket away to make a pile on the floor in front of the bed and sitting up. Hermione’s eyes widened unwillingly, when her gaze, despite her best effort, fell onto his well-toned chest and abs. And because she was stupid and enjoyed that view a tad too long, Fred of course realised, where her eyes were focused and gave her a suggestive look asking in his raspy morning voice, “More interesting than Quidditch?” Hermione, of course, blushed furiously, but still acted aloof by rolling her eyes and replying, “Everything is more interesting than Quidditch”. “But consider this”, he grinned at her, “The only reason you can enjoy this perfect view is because of Quidditch”. Hermione blushed even more and took off, ignoring the very inappropriate thoughts that tried to take her over her mind.


	8. Let's Dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit of a fluffier one, I admit, and it contains my favourite kind of Fred: shamelessly flirty Fred

Fred looked into the mirror sceptically. His hair was arranged more or less neatly, and his suit fit him astonishingly well given that it was second hand, but as his mother was quite an acceptable sewer he assumed she had fixed it to fit his measurements. He turned away to the mirror and basically looked into another one, as he saw his twin brother stand before him. He also felt his expression move from slightly unsure to very confident and saw the same change happening on George’s face as they looked at each other. “Shall we go?”, George then asked giving him another grin, “Angie’s already waiting”. Of course, she was, Fred thought, it was the only reason that George was even eager to get to the ball at the moment. They nodded in unison and left their dorm together, quickly passing by the common room that was completely empty and lingering directly to the Great Hall. With a shared nod and grin, they took their positions at the foot of the staircase, making sure to give their respective dates a chance for a big entrance. If there was only one redeeming quality to be named for the twins, he thought that their sense for theatricality was a strong contestant.

Katie and Angelina, Fred and George’s date respectively, stepped onto the head of the staircase together. One of them was sporting a fiery red dress, which was a bold choice, especially considering that their date was a Weasley and the other wore a startling blue gown. Fred greeted them both with a big goofy grin and George did the same with Katie, but then proceeded to snog the breath out of Angie as a greeting. They then took off to join the general commotion of the dance, while Fred stayed behind with Katie and grinned, “You look amazing”. It wasn’t a lie either, after all, she did look gorgeous. Katie, however, just gave him a sassy smile and replied, “So, who exactly would you actually like to be with, seeing as it’s obviously not me, Freddie”. Fred gave her a truly astonished look, but before he could think of a comeback, he noticed his date’s gaze obviously leaving his form and focusing on something behind him. Out of curiosity he turned around just in time to see Hermione float down the stairs. Although he hadn’t thought it possible, Hermione looked even more breath-taking than usually.

Her beautiful, usually so wild curls, were tamed and pulled into a knot with only a few strands of her hazelnut eyes framing her lovely face. She didn’t wear a lot of make-up, which Fred picked up on, despite being _one of the guys_ , but her eyelashes were darkened by mascara and her cheeks a bit rosier than on the average day. The most amazing part, however, was her dress, which fit tightly to her waist and then fell down in loose frills, something that could have looked ridiculous on any other person and could have made them look like a doll, but somehow made her seem inappropriate. But what enhanced her beauty even more than any of those things was Hermione’s smile. She was all smiles, all bright and beautiful, like a gleaming beacon of light.

He did, however, promptly realise that this amazing smile wasn’t meant for him and rather than waiting for whoever it was meant for, he turned away. He really wasn’t happy about this sudden realisation, but he still refused to be sour about it. Fred had spent enough time being sour, because of his feelings for Hermione and he had somehow come to terms with the whole thing. Instead of focusing on Hermione, he decided to concentrate on his wonderful date. After some dances with Katie she whispered, “She’s free at the moment”. Once again, Fred was more than astonished at how perceptive Katie was, as he had never so much as hinted at what was going on in the turmoil he called his heart. He followed the direction Katie nodded at and saw that she indeed correct, then proceeded to thank Katie and walk towards Hermione dynamically. Once he had reached her, he tapped her on the shoulder and was delighted to receive a broad smile, when she turned around and saw him. “Shall we dance?”, he asked, offering his hand, before Hermione could wonder why he wasn’t with his date. But Hermione did not seem to wonder, but instead shrugged and put her small hand in his larger one.

As soon as she had done so, he pulled her into the waltz posture that he had perfected quite some time ago for some reason he couldn’t remember, probably to impress girls. With the first beat of the next song, he started a swift swinging waltz, pulling Hermione right with him. She acclimatized to his step quickly and soon relaxed into the control he obviously had over the dance. “Why was I not expecting you to be able to dance?”, she asked with a spark of curiosity in her beautiful hazel eyes that very nearly made Fred lose his mind. Merlin, when had he become so desperate. And because that was what he did best, Fred proceeded to poke at the bear a bit suggesting, “Because you underestimate me non-stop like everybody else?"

“Oh, as if you hadn’t underestimated me like everybody else too”, Hermione immediately joined in on the light tone of banter Fred had started. He couldn’t help but laugh at how easily she adjusted and then replied, “I realised long before everybody else that you were impressive and amazing, if I remember correctly. And it has been clear to me for a long time that you are breathtakingly beautiful”. The rouge on her cheeks was at that outshone by her actually blushing at his very blunt compliment. Instead of joking again, she joined the more serious tone and declared, “I know that everybody underestimates you, Fred. But I never have. I know that you’re smart and driven and not only funny. But I quite simply didn’t expect the dancing”. As the dance ended, for a moment he considered telling her that that was why he was so into her, because she saw more in him than anybody else beside his second half. But he knew it was too soon and that Hermione had other problems and needed to know that she was desirable from the likes of Victor Krum and therefore turned to a deeply flirtatious tone saying, “I have a lot more to be offered that nobody knows. Not even George”. The deepening of her blush to more of crimson than a pink, showed him that the innocent Hermione Granger had understood the implication of his statement, but he didn’t give her the time to react and instead disappeared in the crowd, leaving a thoroughly confused Hermione behind.


	9. Apparition

Hermione lay on her designated bed in Grimmauldplace Nr. 12, rereading one of her favourite books. In the last few weeks she had rarely had time for that, because it seemed so silly in the face of everything around her changing and crumbling to pieces. But now that she was in the relative safeness of the Grimmauldplace she took the time she needed for her hobby, aggressively at that. But just as she was considering, how lucky she was to have been undisturbed for nearly an hour by now, the calmness of the her reading idyll was ruined by one Mrs. Weasley, who was busy with making Sirius’ birth place habitable again and loved to use the non-order-members, namely Ginny, Harry, Ron, the twins and her as helpers. Her piercing voice easily carried through the halls of the house as she screamed, “Hermione, Fred, you are allowed to help too!” Hermione sighed a very long, very desperate sigh, put a mark in her book leaving it on her bedside drawer and then stood up. Grumbling she opened the door to the room she shared with Ginny, once again, and stepped into the corridor.

As she walked down the hallway to get to the staircase, her thoughts started traveling to Fred as they so often did in the last time. There was an interesting development to be watched in him. Even though it didn’t occur to the common wealth, who just didn’t care to look closely, Fred had started to keep his distance from George. Of course, they were still identical twins and two sides of the same coin and therefore connected closely in a way she couldn’t even start to fathom, but Fred actually spent way more time without George than earlier. In principal, she didn’t find this quite as horrible as Ginny, who was the only other person to have noticed, always having a had a closer connection with the twins than her other siblings. In Hermione’s humble opinion, Fred was more pleasant when he wasn’t with George. He was less hyper, less forced and, simply, more human, not like the strange, supernatural entity he usually seemed to be.

In that very moment there was a bang and Hermione found herself lying on the floor. “Uff”, was the only thing she could produce, facing the floor with some heavy weight pushing her down. After some seconds of recollecting themselves, her attacker obviously got up as they weight disappeared and gave her the possibility to breathe again. A second later, a big calloused hand reached out to help her out. Hermione didn’t need to face her attacker/helper to know that the hand belonged to the guy that had just occupied her mind, not that she was ever going to tell him. “I’m sorry” he grinned impishly, “Apparating into somebody, that could only ever happen to me”. She chortled at that, acknowledging that yes, this was indeed so silly it could only happen to one of the twins. Hermione then made the big mistake of looking up at Fred to watch him more closely and see his reaction to her chortle. He had made his hopefully last grow spurt and was thus very considerably taller than her and as usual his blue eyes sparkled with a delectable lust for life, his soft lips curled into a smile. A little bit confused, she realised that he was still holding his hand, and she slowly pulled hers away. “Happens to the best of us”, she muttered and could have slapped herself for how her voice shook. Fred didn’t seem to notice and simply stated, “Mum will most likely kill us, if we don’t get there right now”.

“Afraid of the risk, Weasley?”, she asked with a provocative smile, regaining her posture. One of his brows went upwards, but at the same time a slightly off-putting sparkle appeared in his eyes. “Since when were you a bad girl?”, he teased not moving away even an inch. “Just because I don’t heed your mother’s every call?”, she mocked. Fred continued in their tone and added, “That’s quite brave, sweetheart”. That nickname earned the Weasley boy a playful punch to the chest. He in return reeled back just as playfully. Hermione at that put every bit of arrogance she could muster into her posture, icily whispering, “Never call me sweetheart, Weasley”. He finalized their little play by replying, “Ok, ok calm down” and backing away from her. She offered him her hand, thus replying the favour from before, pulling him back towards her and the top of the staircase. Hermione was all too aware of how close he stood to her, because of her own actions, and she could feel his gaze burn into her skin. When she looked up again, as he had stared at her intently, their eyes locked. Acting purely on instinct, she raised her hand and was just about to put it on his cheek, when once again a very shrill voice, although not Mrs. Weasley’s, rang through the halls, “Hermione, Fred, come here at the moment. The order has to get through Molly’s mood, just because the two of you won’t show up”.

They looked at each other and Hermione mischievously asked, “The order hates us now, doesn’t it?” Fred casually replied, “Seems so. But you get used to it”. Laughing at Sirius’ words they stepped apart and took the staircase one after the other and faced the concentrated anger of the order.


	10. Mistakes were made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this chapter so many times honestly. I never knew how to handle it. Whether to make it smutty and up the rating or make it superfluffy. At the end of the day, though, I'm bad at fluff and I'm bad at smut, so it's what I'm best at: ANGST

When the common room quieted down with the lower-class students having gone to bed, Hermione went to grab her bathing utensils, including her new bikini, a bathing towel and a bath robe. Then she proceeded to rush out of her dormitory, crossing the common room and occupied the hallways to reach her new favourite place. Seeing as she had become a prefect this year, the prefect’s bathroom was readily available to her, which was one of the ultimate perks. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to use it at this time of the day, as nobody was supposed to walk around at this time. But as much as Hermione enjoyed keeping to the rules, she allowed herself the little sidestep, seeing as it was the one time of the day where she could relax and cleanse her mind from all the chaos that was going on around her. As she reached the door, she uttered the password and flited into the huge bath room that was more like a roman spa than anything else. Barely registering her surroundings that were always the same calm here, she took off her clothes and changed into her bikini with a simple charm.

Only then did she turn around to get into the ridiculously large tub, that was more like a pool, to realise that somebody already occupied it. “Sorry”, she muttered, submitting to the thought that she would not have her relaxing bath time today an was already jumping into her things, when she heard the low rumble of Fred’s comforting voice, “If I don’t disturb you, you can stay. You won’t disturb me”. She looked at him astonished, still considering just turning away and leaving, and then answered, while once again putting her things into a clean little pile, “Should I ask you, why you have the password to the prefect’s bathroom?”

At that Fred turned around to face her, before only having shown his back, and said with a grin, “If I told you, I would have to kill you”. Hermione could only roll her eyes at the cliché phrasing Fred was using, while also wondering if that was a phrase used in the magical world as well. Still smiling mildly at the stupidity of it all, Hermione walked over to the tub and let herself slide into the water, which could have been a bit hotter for her taste. “So”, Fred asked, with a cynical grin, “What does always correct Hermione Granger do outside her bed this time of the night”. Of course, she knew that at this point, the Weasley was fully aware of Hermione’s character, so she replied with a smile, “You know perfectly well that I am not like that”. Then after a few moments of consideration she added, “I just need some down time from all the chaos. To think, by my lonesome”. Fred just nodded understandingly and leaned back, while she decided to push a bit further, “But truly, what are you doing here?”

Fred didn’t answer but stayed leaning back with his eyes closed. Only when Hermione was almost sure that he wouldn’t reply to her question, he suddenly muttered, “Don’t you find it horrible that we are not allowed to make mistakes?” “How do you mean?”, she asked, confused by where exactly that was coming from. Fred sighed, sinking even further into the water, “What was the last mistake you made that didn’t lead to somebody being severely hurt, killed, locked away or injured in any other way?” She considered that for a while and took some time trying to find the last time but found that it was too depressing how long she needed to reflect. Finally, she resigned, “I’m Harry Potter’s best friend. And the most reasonable of the _golden trio_. I’m used to having to be flawless”. She of course used the title the public had given her and her best friends purely ironically. After a few more moments of letting Fred’s words dig into her mind she added, “But you’re right. It’s kind of messed up, isn’t it?” “We should make a mistake sometime soon, before they make every single one starts killing people”, Fred laughed.

Despite the obvious ridicule in his voice, Hermione nodded seriously and looked into his crystal-clear eyes. Drawn in by those wonderful blue orbs, she whispered, “I could think up something stupid, Freddie. A small mistake of little consequence”. “Which is?”, he replied hoarsely, keeping his gaze fixed to hers. She slowly moved through the water, forcefully pushing away the voices in her head telling her that she was royally fucking up everything right now. After two long breast strokes, she had arrived at Fred’s side and reached out until she carefully touched his hand. Almost immediately Fred reacted, his own hand first playing with her fingers and then moving up her arm, over her shoulders, to her neck and finally stopping at her cheek. “That would be a real mistake”, he whispered, not looking away for one second, “My brother loves you”. “I’m not interested in your brother”, she breathed, barely realising that her voice was just as hoarse as his.

At that he finally closed the short distance between them, uniting their lips and pulling her closer. The way she almost immediately deepened the kiss further told a story of how much she wanted this. It made her realise that this had been a long time coming, drawing up on the horizon perhaps the first time she ever saw Fred Weasley. His lips were soft, yet so sure on hers and his hands were so wonderfully rough, but gentle and she was losing herself in that kiss, but she tore herself away anyway. “Maybe I should go”, she muttered, keeping an arm’s length between her and Fred, getting ready to leave the tub and run away. But Fred held her back with the sheer force of his look and asked, “Why? Do you have to run away from me?” “Apparently”, she sighed in reply, trying to look away so that she could find the strength to leave, but failing miserably, “If I don’t go now, I will do something really stupid, Fred. Not a little mistake of small consequence. But a big one. Something we can’t forget as easily as this”. “You think I can forget this easily, Granger?”, Fred chortled although there was little humour in his voice and his eyes were serious. As she finally pushed away and got out of the tub on the other side she sadly smiled, “Well, hope’s the last to die, isn’t it?” And as she changed into her clothes and left Fred in the bathroom she thought to herself that this idiom was pure torture, because if the hope that she could forget didn’t die, some other hopes she had wouldn’t die either. And because of that, she thought, her life was somehow about to become even more complicated.


	11. Complications

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna give you a little hint: finally

Fred grinned a big satisfied grin at his brother and declared, “Once again we look extraordinarily silly and ingenious at the same time”. George laughed an appreciative laugh, gave his brother a pat on the back and answered, “Go in and win”. Swiftly flattening out a wrinkle in his suit, Fred took the lead from the apartment they currently inhabited to the store downstairs. With a pleased look around he noted that, as usually, their store was crammed with people of all ages and their assistant moved like a hummingbird, quickly jumping from costumer to costumer to answer questions and fulfil the duties she was paid to do. Noting that George had already moved over to help a couple of fellas checking out the muggle joke articles, a very niche product, Fred moved to help their assistant with an especially annoying costumer. He had barely reached her, when his gaze fell on the door through which not only his parents, but also his younger siblings, including Harry, whom he considered to be such, and best and worst of all Hermione entered.

As soon as he laid eyes on her, he could feel every muscle in his body tense up, not being sure whether he wanted to run towards or away from her. He didn’t have to touch his wrist or neck to know that his heart was racing, his pulse far from a normal rate and if he had to guess, he would have been sure that his pupils were significantly dilated. Great, the perfect way to face his whole family, scared to death and love sick at the same time. But he couldn’t help it. His thoughts zeroed in on her, his helpless assistant completely forgotten. Since the incident in the prefect’s bathroom she had done her best job in avoiding her, and Merlin be damned if she wasn’t amazing at that. But now she was there, standing in his store with nowhere to run for either of them.

But before Fred could choke down his racing thoughts enough to be able to do anything, really, his twin stepped forward to great their family. Fred kept himself busy by actually helping his assistant, but from the edges of his sight he carefully watched George chitchatting with his family, pointing out some areas of interest for each of them and then taking Hermione’s hand in his, pulling her to the employees’ room. For a moment, Fred snapped at the sheer thought of his brother touching Hermione in any way, which was ridiculous, because George had never shown any interest in her and was in a happy relationship with Angelina. But after a few seconds, he managed to tone the douche down and realised that George wanted them to talk. And because he trusted his twin’s judgement more than his own, he decided to heed his brother’s call and made for the back room.

As he stepped through the magically guarded curtain, he immediately saw both George and Hermione stand there. George nodded approvingly and muttered, “I would have forced you in here if you hadn’t come on your own”. They all three rolled their eyes at the serious tone, but still George just continued, “You will both stay in here, and believe me, if you leave this room without having cleared this up and either ending this or having made out, I _will_ know”. Then, with an airy movement of his hand, he finished, “Talk!” Another sigh on his side, then he flounced out of the room (there was no other way of describing it). Fred had to physically force himself not to hold back George and beg him to stay and help him out. This wasn’t something for him to share with his twin. This was only about his half of the equation.

Rather than doing what he wanted, which was either kiss her or look everywhere but at her, he stared her directly in the eyes and after a while stated, “You’ve been avoiding me”. He hated how irritated and hurt he sounded while saying this. And he hated the equally desperate look in Hermione’s eyes, which he wanted to get rid of forever. “Fred”, she whispered in that typical tone she used for excuses and long explanations that lead to nothing. That tone everybody always used, when they were about to hurt and reject you. It made Fred’s heart contract in a way he was sure resembled a heart attack. “It’s complicated”, she added. It was as if she had slapped him and he could do nothing but stare at her disbelievingly. Why was he short of words? _How_ was he short of words? He never was and yet, here he stood, hating that she would use such a bland excuse and yet being unable to complain about it. Not being able to say anything, Fred turned on his heel and pulled aside the curtain, but before he stepped outside he was stopped by Hermione’s voice. “Fred”, she once again called his name, but more urgently this time, more desperate. It made him angry, frustrated him. If it was so complicated, why not take the simple way out and let him walk away hating her for a few minutes, because he couldn’t hate her forever. Why call him back.was he was

“What?!”, he finally snapped at her, turning back around, letting the curtain fall and nearly dying at the pain in her eyes. But he couldn’t stop himself, attesting it to the famous Weasley temper, “What’s so _damn_ complicated?!” She winced at the level of his voice, Fred himself cringing on the inside, gave him a desperate look and whispered, “You’re Ron’s brother, Fred”. “So what?”, he bellowed, his voice somehow still managing to get louder, “Why do we always have to care about how Ron feels? He’s not a fucking baby anymore, Hermione, he’s not a desperate thirteen-year-old, who has his first crush. He’s a grown guy, who thinks he’s entitled to you, but has made _no effort whatsoever_ to share your interests”. He paused his rant for a while, trying to calm down and then added in a much quieter voice, “Why are we not giving a fuck about everybody else’s feelings as long as Ron’s happy? Why do we have to be functional adults and he doesn’t? Why do we not matter?”

He could see it in her eyes. He could see her agree with every rhetorical question he had asked. But, because was Hermione was Hermione and not some random egotistical teenage girl, he watched her eyes fill with tears and her body shiver from desperately trying to supress them. With a deep sigh, all anger at the world gone at this side, he walked through the room and pulled her into his arms, noting how his tensed up muscles relaxed as soon as her head touched his chest and how she stopped shivering and let the tears fall freely. That was something he could say for himself at least, he could always offer Hermione a shoulder to cry on. “It would be so easy, Hermione”, he sighed resting his chin on her head, “If we were just a little selfish”. She looked at him, stood on her tiptoes and kissed him gently, sighing, “This world is a mess. It needs Harry to save it. And Harry needs Ron to keep grounded”. Her eyes finished her declaration by saying, what was left to be said. Ron needed her to stay around. But Fred didn’t let her leave, not this time and whispered, “We’ll find another way”. Then he pulled her close again, closing the distance and kissing her desperately, communicating everything this way. And Hermione’s body told him that she agreed.

Then, after finally pulling away, he took her hand and pulled her with him like his twin before. “What’s going on now?”, she laughed, stumbling a bit behind him, but immediately being stabilised by Fred, “We don’t have to tell everybody about this right now”. “And what is this?”, he grinned, wiggling his eyebrows. “A relationship, I suppose”, Hermione muttered shyly making Fred’s grin even wider. “Well, it wasn’t my intention to tell everybody about our _relationship,_ but rather to show you around here, seeing as you’ve never seen it”, he grinned. “How considerate of you”, Hermione sassed, but still followed him with obvious intrigue. Then he proceeded to present the products he and George had worked hard to develop and was glad to find that Hermione was as genuinely interest as he had thought she would be. When they had covered the main parts of the store, he was suddenly stopped by Hermione standing still. Turning around to face her, he saw that he was beaming with pride as she declared, “You are ingenious, Fred, I always knew it”. At that he couldn’t help but smile and bowed down to kiss her right in the middle of the store with everyone watching.


	12. Talking of leaving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yay, Fred and Hermione were happy for like two seconds - let's go back to the sadness (that's just more up my ally)

Hermione gazed at the white marble tomb that looked like a fading scar on the extensive grounds of Hogwarts from her elevated position on the astronomy tower. Albus Dumbledore’s tomb was clearly visible from their vantage point and the death it represented was felt just as clearly. Just before, shortly after their headmaster’s funeral, she had come up here with Ron and Harry to talk to them, trying to compartmentalize what had happened in the last time. Harry had found out about Voldemort’s horcruxes, searched for one with Dumbledore, Malfoy let death eaters into the castle and then Snape killed Dumbledore, or maybe it was the other way around. All of this new information, once organized in a more or less logical way lead to the common realisation that they wouldn’t return to Hogwarts next year, but instead search what was hopefully only Great Britain for horcruxes.

Lost in her thoughts she only realised that she wasn’t alone on the top of the highest Hogwarts tower, when the other person put his arms around her in a way that she knew well, because of how often he had done that very thing. “Are you alright”, Fred whispered gently into her ear and then affectionately kissed the crook of her neck. She nuzzled back against him, enjoying the comfortable warmth he radiated. That feeling of home that she didn’t get often enough, because Fred wasn’t at Hogwarts anymore. Then she whispered, “How could I be alright? For weeks people have been dropping like flies and disappearing and now that Dumbledore isn’t here to protect us anymore, it will only become worse. The war won’t be far now”. Fred only muttered an agreeing “mmh” into the thick of her hair. She smiled at the tickling feeling of Fred’s low rumble. She also took the time to note how uncommonly possessive the way he held her was. And it made her realise what was going on.

Because Fred was so much more intelligent than he lead on, although it had got better in the last two years, and much more perceptive. He would pick up on what was happening around him and even though he didn’t know exactly what was happening, she knew that he would connect the dots and figure out exactly where this all lead to. Fred knew that Harry had to leave, and that Hermione couldn’t stay either, and that even if she could, she wouldn’t let Harry leave alone. But she didn’t want to talk about these decisions she had already made and knew she’d never change and she didn’t want to talk about the future they out of sheer probability likely wouldn’t have either. As Fred clearly didn’t want to address it either, they just stood there for a while, enjoying the green landscape and the soft summer breeze that so drastically contrasted the cold November day in their hearts. It was a luxury to enjoy a little bit of calmness before they had to start proving their life every single day.

“When will you go?”, Fred eventually asked in a gentle tune he reserved strictly for her, when the silence had changed from comfortable to suffocating. Without a second thought, seeing as she had already guessed that he knew she answered, “After Bill and Fleur’s wedding probably. Then we’ll have witnessed that and Harry will have turned seventeen”. The thought made her shudder involuntarily, scaring her more than she would ever admit. “Why will you go?”, Fred inquired, his voice cracking on the last word. Hermione knew that characteristic crack from years of friendship with members of the Weasley family and her complicated relationship with Fred. Their voices always cracked when they were about to cry. And as it were, it was characteristic for her own family to cry when somebody you cared deeply about cried themselves. Hence the hard gulp she had to take, forcing down the upcoming tears, before she replied, “I can’t tell you”.

She felt Fred nod against her head, acknowledging and accepting that she couldn’t tell him and kept silent for a while. “You don’t know, when you’re coming back, do you?”, he then asked, or more truthfully stated, always so much more serious than everybody thought he was. After half the sentence his voice cracked again, showing that he was definitely losing it. Hermione sighed and turned around so that Fred’s arms rested at her lower back and she could look into those beautiful blue eyes, she had come so accustomed to gazing into. They shimmered with tears and that sight broke her heart. She stood on her tip toes, because that was the only way she could reach his lips, and kissed him, but Fred hardly reacted the way he usually did and asked, when she went back down on her heels, “Can you promise me that you will return?” She wanted to say yes. She wanted to lie to him to make all of this easier for her so that she didn’t have to see him break right in front of her. But instead she looked directly into his eyes and breathed, “No”.

But rather than breaking at that and looking resigned, she seemed to have flipped a switch with this statement, because his eyes suddenly filled with determination. With ease, he picked up Hermione, which forced a little yelp from her lips, and then proceeded to carry her down the endless staircases of the astronomy tower. Even if Fred was usually very sure of himself, she had rarely seen him this determined. But she caught the idea quit quickly, understanding his carpe diem attitude. Seize the day, enjoy what little time you have left. It made perfect sense with the smile that was curling around the corners of his moth and reached his eyes after a while. While he carried her around the school, Hermione realised that they were headed for the prefect’s bathroom, which resurrected some memories. Finally, they reached it, and Fred kicked open the door after having basically shouted the password.

The bathroom, however, wasn’t unoccupied, but rather had Harry sitting at the edge of the basin, a towel around his slender hips. “Hey, Harry”, Hermione awkwardly greeted her best friend, entirely aware of how uncomfortable the situation was. But before anybody could comment on that, Fred spit, “Out”. Already getting up and packing is things, Harry still inquired, “Why?” All three of them knew it was purely for show, of course, because Harry had long ago stopped asking for explanations. Fred still humoured him, while gently putting her down and explained, “Because I will enjoy the time I have left with my girlfriend/your best friend in the best way I know and I’m sure you will not want to witness it”. Harry raised an eyebrow and made as if he was considering staying, but then rushed out the door replying, “Have fun”.


	13. Dancing Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, this chapter is kind of precious. So, enjoy, while it lasts

Fred woke up and was for a moment confused about not finding Hermione in his arms and instead have his oldest brother tossing and turning next to him hectically. But as he grew fully awake and stood up to stretch, a grin spread on his face as he remembered that today Bill was getting married. The broad grin still stretching over his face after his afternoon nap, Fred shook his brother rather forcefully to wake him up. Bill opened his eyes, no sleepiness in them, but only a shocked realisation, “I’m getting married today”. Fred laughed and conceited, “Yeah, sure, that hasn’t changed in the last hour”. They had decided to have Bill take a nap, because he was freaking everybody out with his nervousness. “And because you’re getting married”, Fred smiled, straightening his pants, “I will help preparing the outside”. Then he left Bill behind, taking strides three times the usual size to get to and through the back door.

In the backyard of the new Burrow, in the huge garden that they had rebuilt after last Christmas, George, Charlie and Ron and his father were busy not actually building anything, but letting tables crash together. “I’m next”, he shouted to the group, running to join them. After Charlie had smashed off one of his father’s table’s legs with one of his, it was Fred’s turn to compete against the reigning champion of table death. He was just about to end the long line of victories in this “sport”, he was very unfairly distracted by one Hermione Granger putting two slender arms around his waist and kissing him on the very sensitive spot in his neck. Accepting the defeat, Fred turned around to snog his girlfriend until they were both out of breath and she was helplessly leaning onto him, barely able to stand. To which both he and George reacted by wiggling their eyebrows.

Some hours later, the wedding started with a beautiful ceremony that touched every single guest, except for Aunt Muriel maybe, but she had always been special. At the words bound for life Fred saw nothing but Hermione, who first looked at Harry, her best friend and then at Fred. There was not even the slightest bit of jealousy in him, when she did that, because he knew that Harry completed her in a way that George did for him, but that despite both of their best efforts, Hermione only loved him, and he only loved her. And for the first time ever he was ok with Hermione’s eyes glistening with tears, because he noticed them as the same tears of joy that filled his eyes and blurred his vision.

After that the celebration began with the newly weds performing their first dance and thus opening the dance floor. Fred stayed next to Hermione the whole time, knowing full well that she wouldn’t stay much longer, that she had to leave, that she might not come back. But he pushed those horrible truths away and instead pulled her to the dance floor, laughing together with Hermione as they stumbled through the crowd inelegantly. When a slower song came on, he pulled her close in a way that he knew she found charming, if a little possessive, and whispered, “I love you”. Hermione didn’t reply to those words. She hardly ever did, always trying to make him care less, although it was of course fruitless. Instead, she smiled against his chest and nuzzled against him contently. For a while they just swayed along to the beat and enjoyed being close to one another, then he whispered leaning down so that only she could hear it, because only she counted, “I have always loved you, Hermione, and I will always love you. No matter, where you are”.

He could see the lump build in her throat slowly, could see what she remembered, because he remembered the same. In the next morning, if not this night, she would be gone, leaving him behind to fight for something bigger. For an eternity probably, as it would take that time to succeed in whatever it was they had to do, whatever it was that was so much bigger than the both of them and their relationship. So long until they’d meet again. If they ever were to meet again at all. He tried to delete this though energetically and not to fully through with what he entailed, but he failed miserably. “I will never love anyone like I love you, never, no matter how long we will live and I think you feel the same”, he whispered, still only for her to ever hear. Then he corrected himself, “Scratch that. I _know_ you feel the same”. Then he put a finger under Hermione’s chin so that he could into her hazel eyes and with a silly grin added, “Looking at you I am actually certain, that you positively adore me. It’s nearing embarrassing”.

Hermione laughed a strange mixture of laughter and sob, which he had heard too many times before, kissed him shortly and then replied, “I love you, but you are _literally crazy_ for me”. Fred reacted by making a crazy, mad gesture above his head and changing between squinting and showing the white of his eyes, all the while not forgetting that he had just witnessed one of the rare occasions, where Hermione actually said those three words. She chuckled, making Fred’s heart skip a beat, which it did often, when Hermione was happy. He often felt like he would literally have a heart attack from how happy he was around her. After a while Fred became serious again, his eyes all love and all affection, starting to play with what he had in his pocket. Did he really want to do this? It was unnecessary to ask, though as he already knew that of course, he wanted do, so he started to explain, “My family has a long line of twins. It can be traced back for centuries. There was a set of twins in each generation” – he paused for a moment – “my mother’s twin brothers were the last ones before George and me”. They had stopped dancing at this point, only moving ever so slightly.

He watched her eyes widen, when he pulled the ring he had been guarding like the treasure it was, out of his pocket, “This ring has a twin just like the people they were passed on to and from. Father to son, uncle to nephew, whatever. They are only ever altered to contain the heart stone of the person who owns it”. He turned it around so that Hermione could see the small azure that was framed by the silver setting. Then, with a final sigh, he whispered, “My heart belongs to you”. Hermione gazed at him and watched him intently as he slipped the ring onto her finger, watching is it magically altered to fit her smaller finger. “And if you want to”, he added, admiring how the ring looked on her finger, the ring finger of her right hand, “It’s a promise”.


	14. Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it, huh...

Hermione ran through the corridors of Hogwarts, once again. It was nearly ironical that she had done that so many times before and it had always been because her feelings were hurt, or she had been unhappily in love. Now, she was running away from giants and deadly spiders and ducking away from death curses. Their lives had seemed so difficult already back then and yet they couldn’t compare in the slightest to what was going on now. But in the end, she supposed, it had to end here, here in Hogwarts, were everything had started, where Voldemort found his home, just like Harry, where Harry got to know and learned to love the magical world that he now tried to safe. The place their whole lives had been revolving around. Those thoughts were rushing through her head as she speeded through the castle, holding onto her wand and the poisonous fangs for dear life, because she knew full well that they were synonymous with life, synonymous with the only chance they had of ending this all.

As she rushed around another corner, Ron charging along by her side, she very suddenly looked into the eyes of the most important person in her life. Fred. He fought side by side with two other Weasleys, Percy and George, all three of them standing out against the crowd with their fiery red hair, but only Fred standing out to her like a shining beacon of light. She watched as Percy defeated a death eater, casting a very nasty looking curse and celebrated internally. Hermione watched Percy’s lips move as he said something, and she heard Fred laugh over the ruckus the duel was causing when he turned around grinning. And for a brief moment she locked eyes with this person that somehow had been home to her in one chaos of a world and he smiled.

And in the very moment his eyes told her how much he loved her and that they would be ok, he oversaw a curse.

Hermione couldn’t do it. Her mind thought of a protection charm that didn’t become concrete soon enough for her to actually cast it and save him from the ceiling that was crumbling onto and burying Fred. She watched it all happen so slowly that she had time to count exactly how many pieces of solid stone were falling onto Fred’s body, time having slowed down. Together with Fred falling down, she fell down. Together with the ceiling crumbling to pieces, she crumbled to pieces. It seemed like an eternity that she stayed there on the floor huddled, her wand utterly useless in her hand. Because for an eternity there, Hermione couldn’t even fathom what had just happened. There couldn’t be a world without Fred, could there? There couldn’t be a world, where Fred didn’t smile at her and joke around and tell her that he loved her. There couldn’t be a world in which Fred didn’t tell her that he loved her, and she couldn’t tell him, because she hadn’t possibly told him often enough. Scared of what the words entailed, although she knew that they were true. And yet something in her had broken and she had felt the ring on her finger, that always had radiated warmth, grow cold.

The magical world, as far as she cared, might as well just have crumbled and fallen into chaos. It didn’t matter. What good was a world without Fred anyway. She barely noticed curling into a ball and getting lost in herself. Maybe somebody would kill her. Hopefully, somebody would kill her. Unite her with Fred. Through the haze of tears covering her eyes, she watched as Ron and George pushed away the stones, Ron and somebody she didn’t recognize guarding their backs, fighting back death eaters and other monsters. She saw the lasting smile on Fred’s soft lips, his last expression happy, content and not scared. Never scared. He looked perfectly alright, only that the shimmer in his eyes was gone. They would never lighten up again, when she came into his field of vision.

An inhuman scream ripped her out of her haze, away from the grief that was suffocating her slowly but surely. It took her a few moments to figure out it was her own. She felt suddenly, the tears drying on her face mixing in with the blood and dirt to form a disgusting paste. She felt her bones ache from the sudden drop to the floor and she felt two strong arms around her waist, raising her up with a gentle sort of force and taking her with him. But as soon as she realised she was being carried towards Fred, she pulled away, stumbling towards him, nearly falling over her own feet, who seemed to have forgotten what they had learned one and a half decades ago. She threw herself onto Fred as she was there, pushing Ron, who was hovering over Fred away and noting, how Fred didn’t throw out his arms to catch her as he would have usually done. The tears came falling quickly as she thought of that and she lay there sobbing into Fred’s chest, which was still warm, nuzzling into him and crying out her sorrow once more, like she had done so many times.

She had heard about how people saw their lives flash before their eyes as they died. As she had never died, she didn’t know if that was true, but as she lay there she saw every memory of Fred flash by her eyes. The first time she saw Fred on the Hogwarts Express, when she searched for Trevor and scared everybody around her. The times she cried at his shoulder, when he was not even interested in her yet, but saw her as family, and later when he loved her already, but she didn’t understand that quite yet. Waking him up for the first time in the way she woke him up a thousand more times later on. Running into him, when she least expected it and smiling always. Dancing with him at the Yule Ball. That first night in the prefect’s bathroom, when she was so sure she had made a mistake, but she had actually made the best decision in her whole life. When he screamed at her, because of how much he loved her and comforted her the next second, when she was crying, because of how much she loved him. How he let her go, although he knew that she might never return. When they danced at Bill and Fleur’s wedding and he gave her his heart and a promise. Their last kiss before she had to go. The messages he gave her through the secret radio station he ran. The joy of seeing him again. Their last kiss, the very last that tasted of hope for a future together. His smile before he died, that told tales of a future filled with a whole army of red-haired little know-it-all’s that want to improve the world at all cost. That smile he wore, not because his brother was back in his ranks and not because he thought in a war for something he believed in and not even because he thought the magical world might be saved, but because he looked at Hermione.

She pulled away, stood up and looked into that face that she loved with such reckless abandon. Then she leaned down to give him a short peck on the unresponsive lips and closed his eyes with a quick charm. She turned around, away from Fred, and went to look for Harry, jumping back into the battle she knew she had to fight. Because she owed it to Fred to at least try and make this little spark of hope last. And try she did.


	15. Epilogue - 19 years later

Hermione stood on platform 9 3/4, her arms safely tucked around a small girl with peculiar features, fiery red, bush hair and hazel eyes that trustingly looked up to her mother’s matching pair. The corners of the little girl’s mouth were raised into an excited smile and her movements were erratic, much like a squirrel that nearly jumped out of her black uniform cloak that she had chosen to wear already, much like Hermione herself some decades ago. Hermione’s gaze wandered from her daughter to Ron, her husband, smiling next to her. He had grown a little potbelly despite his active work as an auror and was leading an animated conversation with their son, probably about Quidditch or something equally unnecessary and yet beloved. Her heart, while looking at the two of them and the people around her, fluttered with happiness, a comforting warmth spreading in her. She truly did love her family.

But as much as he loved him, she couldn’t help but compare him to what she had had. She couldn’t help but notice that her heart fluttered, but it didn’t skip a beat. That she breathed evenly instead of nearly suffocating from excitement. That the only reason her stomach might act up, when she looked at Ron was because she tended to be hungry as a human being. She also painfully an ashamedly thought about how she thought of Fred, when Ron kissed her and how she wished for Fred’s arms, when Ron was holding her and how she dreamed of Fred, when she slept with Ron. The very same gave her a reassuring smile when he caught her eye. He loved her passionately, although he knew that she would never love him as more than a friend, something he had come to terms with within a few weeks of building their new world. There had been no time for second guessing and she was endlessly thankful for him having first-guessed the way he had.

Her gaze went on to George, who had his arms around his wife and daughter, but took away the one to take twist the around the ring he wore next to his wedding band. As he played with his, Hermione’s hand automatically went to the twin ring she wore on her finger, right where Fred had first put it. Even when she had accepted Ron’s proposal, she didn’t take it off, but left it right where it belonged. It had been a promise and seeing as the other party wasn’t able to keep the bargain, she would, until the day she would see him again. And no other, less significant promise was ever going to replace this one. It was years of practice that gave her the ability to repress the small sob that was about to leave her lips and instead search for her two godsons.

At that very moment, she felt a hand on her shoulder that felt calloused like only beater’s hand ever did. She turned around to face the person whose voice greeted her with a happy, “Hermione!” It was one of her two godsons, Fred Weasley Jr., who, of course was her godson, because who else would be his guardian. With his fifteen years he was already taller than her, just like his late uncle had been and his father was. She smiled and pulled him into a motherly hug and then asked, “Have you seen your cousin?” At that Fred smiled that wonderful smile that he had got from George but made him look just as much as the other twin and mused, “You’ll have to be a little more precise about that”. At her slowly raised eyebrow that asked for a non-bullshit policy because he knew exactly whom she meant, he conceited, “But if by any chance you mean James. He’s somewhere around here, if I’m not completely mistaken”. Fred had barely finished that sentence, when he was picked up as if she were still a teenager and spun around, instead of being greeted normally. “James”, she chastised her second godson playfully, although it was pointless, because they both knew she loved him beyond reason. Looking at the both of them she saw in plain sight what she laughed about them so much. Together they came very close to being like Fred, the original Fred Weasley.

Making sure that neither Harry and Ginny, nor George and Angelina were watching, she took two presents from her magically altered purse and secretively handed them to her godchildren, knowing that their parents would disapprove because she gave them too many presents already. It was only some money and a bit of new Quidditch gear, as every year. Admittedly, she did it mostly to make herself happy, instead of the boys. After they had both tucked the parcels away carefully, she gave them both a peck on the cheek, instead of the kiss on the forehead she used to give them, when they weren’t both so ridiculously tall, and finally send them off to board the train. Then she made a point to give her daughter a long hug and kiss goodbye, before also sending her off to the train that would take her to Hogwarts for the first time. As a student that was.

She watched the train intently until the tail was gone. Only then did she let her gaze move on. It got caught on an attractive man on the other side of the platform. Noticing his white blonde hair it didn’t take a genius to make the connection to who he was and why he was here. His gaze was still on the train, which was now long gone, and that his son stayed in. When he turned around, his gaze met hers for a split second, shuffling from her to Ron at her side to her son who was still talking to Ronald and back to her. And he understood. There was an understanding half-smile on his lips and he gave a shrug. She couldn’t help but smile back.


End file.
